Social network and support influences on perceived control for exercising 2, 4 or 6 days per week S.N. Fraser 1, T.C. Murray 1,2, W.M. Rodgers 2, & C. Loitz 2 1 Athabasca University, 2 University of Alberta Introduction Purpose As behavioral demands increase people might feel less control over executing the required behavior. For example, people might think exercising a couple of days per week would be more within one’s control than exercising daily. Larger social networks (SN) and greater perceptions of social support (SS) are thought to provide individuals with greater resources and opportunities to be active. With more social resources available individuals might have a higher sense of control over a behavior. This study examined the influence of SN and general SS on perceived control (PC) for exercising 2, 4, or 6 days per week. Hypotheses It was thought that individuals would report more control over fewer days of exercise per week. That is, it was thought that as demands increase, people would perceive less control over executing the activity. Second, it was thought that more social support in terms of the size on one’s social group as well as more functional support would lead to higher perceptions of control over exercising. Methods Participants : 154 undergraduate students completed survey measures of SN, SS (tangible, appraisal, self-esteem, and belonging), and PC over exercising 2, 4, or 6 days per week. Procedures: 221 Undergraduate psychology students who signed up to participate in an unknown research project were given course credit for arriving at their scheduled appointments. The study was explained and participants then gave informed consent prior to completing the survey measures. 151 participants provided completed surveys in an exam like setting in a class room with a maximum size of 25 students. Measures: Social support was assessed with the college version of the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL; Cohen & Hoberman, 1983). The ISEL is a 48-item Likert type scale assessing four different types of functional support: tangible (e.g., financial aid), belonging (e.g., someone to ‘hang out’ with), appraisal (e.g., someone to talk to) and self-esteem (e.g., positive evaluations from others) support. Cronbach’s alpha ranged from.77 to.89 in this sample. Social networks was assessed by Social Network Index (SNI; Cohen, Doyle, Skoner, Rabin, & Gwaltney, 1997). Participants were asked to complete 12 questions concerned with how many people they talked with at least every two weeks. The SNI distinguishes between network diversity and network size. Network diversity assesses the number of social roles one has such as a spouse, a child, or a friend, for example. Network size refers to the number of people in one’s social network. Perceived control for exercise was assessed by asking participants how much control they had over exercising, how easy or difficult it would be to perform exercise, and how confident they were to complete exercise. Exercise was defined as moderate to strenuous activity for minutes. Participants responded to these 3 questions for each of 2, 4 and 6 days per week and mean scores were computed. Cronbach’s alpha was.91 for 2, 4, and 6 days per week. Results Hypotheses One  Repeated measures MANOVA was used to test for differences in perceived control over exercise 2, 4, or 6 days per week. Results showed a significant effect, F(1.43, ) = , p<.001,  2 =.70.  Follow-up pairwise comparisons showed that the means for PC was different for 2, 4 and 6 (7.62, 6.05, 4.46, respectively) days per week. Hypotheses Two  Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to see the influence of social network characteristics on perceptions of control (step 1). Step 2 examined the influence of functional social support after accounting for social network factors. Since support was hypothesized to lead to higher perceptions of control, one-tailed t-tests were used as tests of the significance of the beta coefficients. Both structure (r sc ) and beta coefficients were interpreted to determine the contribution of variables to the regression equation (Thompson, 2006).  PC over exercising 2 days per week was best explained by social network size at step 1. At step 2, network size remained significant and self-esteem support was related to more perceived control over exercise. Structure coefficients suggest that belonging support was also a contributor (see Table 1).  PC over exercising 4 days per week was best explained by social network size at step 1. At step 2, network size remained significant and belonging support was related to more perceived control over exercise. Structure and beta coefficients suggest that network size and belonging support were the key contributors (see Table 2).  PC over exercising 6 days per week was best explained by social network size at step 1. At step 2, network size remained significant and self-esteem support was related to more perceived control over exercise. Structure coefficients suggest that belonging support was also a contributor (see Table 3). Conclusion  Participants’ PC over exercise was different depending on the frequency of exercise (i.e., exercising 2, 4 or 6 days per week). Participants reported they had the most control over exercising 2 days a week, somewhat less control over 4 days a week, and the least control over excising 6 days a week.  A larger network size was related to PC for every frequency of exercise, even after adding social support. Thus, having a larger social network seems to independently contribute to PC for exercise in general.  Perceived control for the different frequencies of exercise had different social support antecedents  Feeling like one belongs to a group was most important for PC over exercising at a more typical moderate frequency of 4 days per week. Perhaps having people to socialize and ‘hang out’ with provides more opportunities to be active at this behavioral frequency, and this subsequently contributes to higher control beliefs.  Self-esteem support was related to control over the lowest and highest behavioral frequency, exercising 2 and 6 days per week. Feeling that you are being positively evaluated by others (such as friends) may be important for feeling control over a complex behavior like 6 days per week of exercise.  An important future direction is to examine if self-esteem support is particularly important for those trying to adopt exercise and for those trying to maintain a high frequency of exercise.  Interestingly, tangible support was not as important for PC compared to self-esteem and belonging support. This suggests that tangible resources might not be critical for these students in terms of feeling control over exercising.  Finally, studies should examine if these hypothesized relations hold for the prediction of actual behavior. Table 1. Regression analysis predicting control for exercising 2 days per week from social networks and social support VariableRR 2 adj β 1 pβ2β2 pr sc Step SNI-size SNI-diversity Step Tangible Belonging Appraisal Self-esteem Note: F Step 1 (2, 151) = 6.185, p <.01; F Step 2 (6, 147) = 4.222, p <.001; R 2 Δ F(4, 147) = 3.071, p =.018; r sc = structure coefficient for the last step. Table 3. Regression analysis predicting control for exercising 6 days per week from social networks and social support VariableRR 2 adj β 1 pβ2β2 pr sc Step SNI-size SNI-diversity Step Tangible Belonging Appraisal Self-esteem Note: F Step 1 (2, 151) = 6.658, p <.01; F Step 2 (6, 147) = 4.139, p <.001; R 2 Δ F(4, 147) = 2.727, p =.032; r sc = structure coefficient for the last step. Table 2. Regression analysis predicting control for exercising 4 days per week from social networks and social support VariableRR 2 adj β 1 pβ2β2 pr sc Step SNI-size SNI-diversity Step Tangible Belonging Appraisal Self-esteem Note: F Step 1 (2, 151) = 8.933, p <.001; F Step 2 (6, 147) = 5.464, p <.001; R 2 Δ F(4, 147) = 3.440, p =.01; r sc = structure coefficient for the last step.